Day: May 21, 2010

The HX series of firmwares for the Samsung i8910 HD continue to roll out, with v5 the best yet, with a number of important fixes and detailed improvements, including, critically, fixing the Java certificate problem and improving battery life. As ever, these firmwares are 100% unofficial, but they’re easy to apply* and can dramatically transform this old but still powerful smartphone. Comments welcome if you get a chance to try it on your i8910. Changelog extracts and link here:

“Nokia has released an update, version 3.04, for Ovi Maps. The new version adds formal support for WiFi as a positioning method as part of an overhaul of the positioning functionality, plus significant performance improvements for search, zooming and map panning, a number of consumer-friendly UI tweaks and the addition of Qype information to the places database. Read on for more details. Ovi Maps is one of the most successful parts of Nokia Ovi service offerings. As of the end of March 2010, Ovi Maps 3.03 (3.3) with free navigation has been downloaded 10 million times. Every day it is used to help navigate the equivalent of 15 times round the earth – that’s around 200,000 km a day or 5.7 million km a month (and that’s not counting the offline usage that the application also allows). And now there’s a new version available. We spoke to Nokia’s Marcel Duee, who heads up the product team for Ovi Maps, about the details of the new release, the thinking behind it and what lies ahead. Read on for further details here: